Friday, February 3, 2012

The Dark Side

Today I have a very special blog for you fine folks. My girlfriend, Angel, has decided to highjack my blog with a little personal piece she wrote between yesterday and today, entitled "The Dark Side". I can't help but notice the (intentional?) use of a Star Wars reference in that title. She really poured her heart into this one and it would be nice for her to get some feedback from you kooky kids. Now, keep in mind, this is all her. She wrote this from start to finish. I did very little to polish it up for it's finished form. I am very proud of her for doing this and for the bravery it took to actually let me post it in my blog for the world to see. So, please, read on and enjoy:

The Dark Side

Everyone
has a boogeyman. The little voice in
your head that makes you doubt yourself, constantly telling you that you’re no
good at anything you do. Well, you
haven’t seen one like this until you have met mine. What you read may be disturbing
to you. You’re about to enter my world. The way things are seen through my eyes. Crazy
as it may seem to you, keep in mind a lot of this I don't have control over. I'm still working on things. I have a lot of major damage that was done to
me, some of which I’ve never talked about before. It's very hard for me to ask for help. I mean, how do you ask for help by explaining
that your self-conscience is telling you to do things to yourself? That’s impossible without the other person
thinking you’re insane and that you belong in a hospital.

Everyone that
knows me knows I have serious self-confidence issues. Most of it started when I was younger. When I was in eighth grade there were two
girls that wanted to kick my ass. They
used to call me a slut and a whore all the time. They were always saying it in front of tons of
people. They were the popular girls in
school so naturally I thought everyone was going to believe them. This destroyed me. As someone that was quiet and kept to myself, I
never understood why they were doing this to me. I had never had sex, so what they were saying
wasn’t true. I now know that it was
because I wore skirts to school all the time. Later, during my senior year in high school,
my self-confidence suffered another heavy blow; my boyfriend cheated on me with
my best friend. All I can say is that
this left me alone, devastated, with no one to talk to. I had just lost my boyfriend and best friend,
all in one shot. I don't recommend
anyone letting their life revolve around just your best friend and your boyfriend.

When I was
married I would sit and wonder, “I know you love me, but I don't understand why
you hurt me by putting me down and making comments that make me look
stupid.” Then I’d think, “Well he loves
me and we have been together for 10 years so it must be true. Why else would he say things like that?” It has happened to me again since then. I think, “Well Ed (my ex-husband) has said
that to me, too. It must be true if he
is saying the same thing.” People at
work have talked to me like I was stupid.
It’s funny how, when they can’t figure something out, they come and ask
me for help. So I must not be that
stupid.

I know I have a
dark side to myself that I like to go to.
I like to be alone, sitting in a dark room with no light. Just complete darkness. Sitting there with my pillow and some music
playing. As I lay there, I look back on
everything that I have done wrong in my life. What can I do with my life? I need to do something with my life. Make something of myself. Do something so
someone can look at me and be proud of me and the things I've done. Not where everything in my life is a big screw up.

I still have a
lot of times where the bad side comes out.
My conscience still talks to me.
Every so often it tries to send me back to that place where I do bad
things to myself. It tells me that I'm a
bad person. That I don't deserve what I
have. That I'm just going to ruin Mike's
life just like I did to Ed's. I start to
believe everything that it is telling me.
I don't know how to get it to stop.

I was at the
point where my answer was to overdose.
There was no way that I could fix any of it. In my eyes I screwed up three people's
lives. I have two boys that were going
to hate me because I broke up their family.
All because I felt like I didn't exist anymore. One thing I swore would not happen to me was
I would never be divorced. I wouldn't
let that happen to my kids. I would
never let them go through that. Look
where I am now. I had to be a
disappointment to my parents because of what I did. How could I even show my face to anyone? Everyone would be better off if I was
gone. I had it all planned out.

Then I met
Mike. I didn’t really just meet
Mike. I have known him for at least 5
years. I always felt some kind of weird
connection with him. I couldn't explain
it. When I decided to go off all my
medication cold turkey, he stuck by me.
He told me that I didn't sound like I was in a good place. One weekend, my family went away for a few
days. Mike said he didn't think it was
safe for me to be home alone and convinced me to stay with him so that nothing
would happen to me. When I was going to
get sick (from quitting my medications) he sat with me on the floor in the bathroom. That meant so much to me, that someone would
take the time to do that for me. I don't
know why he would do that for me or what his reason was for it.

He had to have
felt something. He made it clear he
didn’t want a relationship so I was ready to give up and go through with my
self-destructive plans. Except for one
thing; he had told me that he loved me.
Something told me that no matter how he acts or treats me to continue to
stick with it. I've never really truly
fought for something that I believed in.
I'm not one that believes in soulmates, that there is someone out there
that you're really meant to be with.
Nonetheless, there was something there.
Something I have never felt before.
I knew that he had been hurt several times before. I knew that he was just afraid of being
attached to anyone because the pain that comes after. I know all about disappointments. I think that is why, for some reason, there
was always some weird connection with us.
We have had a lot of the hurt and disappointments in past
relationships. I stuck with him, and
eventually he come around.

We do have a
lot of fights and I get scared that I'm just screwing up everything I’ve
gained. This time I wouldn’t just be
destroying me but it would destroy my boys as well. They both have become very attached to
him. He has been the back up and the
structure that both the boys and I have needed.
It has been very hard on him to have to adjust his life around his
newfound family. Going from being alone
and having it quiet all the time, to having 2 boys in the house. I can see his frustration.

I have finally
met someone that understands me and the things I’ve gone through. He may not understand everything but he tries
to understand the things that he doesn't.
I haven't figured out how he knows some of the things he does. Most of the time he can figure me out without
any problem at all. It amazes me
sometimes. He knows when something is
wrong before I even know. How is that
possible?

I know that at times he gets extremely frustrated with me. I know it has to be very hard on him, dealing with someone in my extreme condition. Making sure that I am taking my medication. Making sure that it is being taken correctly. Watching over me to make sure that I don't slip into the bad place that I was in once before. I have nothing but appreciation for everything that Mike has done for me. I'm sure it has put my parents more at ease, knowing that there is someone out there who loves their daughter enough to watch over her like she needs. Someone that may not understand everything that I'm going though but sure as hell tries with all his heart to understand me.

Now I'm
in a better situation. I found someone
that I know loves me and my boys enough to invest so much of his time into
making sure I'm taken care of. He makes sure
he is there to talk to me so I don't go over the edge. I'm a much better person than I was, which is
better for the two people who need me the most. I'm lucky to still be alive today. I hope that maybe I can give inspiration to
someone else who is dealing with their own dark side.

No one realizes
how much you’re worth to them until you’re not around. Yet sometimes I still wonder if I'm doing
something wrong because more than one person has treated me that way. I know that none of them know exactly what
that does to me or how deeply it has scarred me. All it does is feed the boogeyman, or the dark
side of me. Do I really come across as
some stupid human being that is a waste of everyone's time? Do I really deserve the negative things that
people say and do to me? Like I said in
the beginning, I'm still working on things. I know on this subject I should live by this
quote: "So long as you are still worried about what others think of you,
you are owned by them." -Neale Donald Walsch